A tropical depression formerly known as Tropical Storm Cindy caused flooding on Thursday in several U.S. southeastern states, spawned a tornado that injured four people in Alabama, and cut 16 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production.

Friday, June 23, 2017, 9:13 - The remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy brought tornadoes and flooding to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Thursday and its heavy rains will drench much of the eastern United States in coming days, forecasters said.

Flooding and road closures stretched from east Texas into northwestern Florida after Cindy made landfall early on Thursday near the Louisiana-Texas border and weakened to a tropical depression, the National Weather Service said.

Cindy is expected to dump 3 to 6 inches of rain as it heads north and east into the Ohio Valley and the Appalachian Mountains through Saturday, said Brian Hurley, a weather service meteorologist. Totals could reach 9 inches in some areas.

"We're looking at quite a bit of rain. That's going to be the main threat," he said.

The center of the dying tropical storm could pass near Washington by Saturday morning and move off Massachusett's Cape Cod on Saturday evening, followed by a cold front, the National Weather Service said.

By midday Thursday the storm had cut Gulf of Mexico oil production by 16 percent, representing around 288,000 barrels per day of output, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said.

Energy operators had evacuated 39 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, or roughly 5 percent of them.

The storm's only reported fatality occurred on Wednesday, when a 10-year-old boy was struck by a log dislodged by a large wave as he stood near the shore in Fort Morgan, Alabama, the Baldwin County coroner said.